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‘Our road was now continuously uphill. The adjutant said it was only about 10 miles to the trenches, but we heard no firing. The pine trees became sparser, and juniper, rich with violet-green berries, grew luxuriantly among the crags. We came upon rows of graves which from the inscriptions could only have been five days old. Carp, a Romanian lieutenant, was the name on one of the wooden crosses. Towards two o’clock we traversed a bare hollow streaked with mist, and saw a terrible and bewildering spectacle.
Where a solitary house in the middle had been burned down, the embers were still smoking. The blackened walls were still standing, and one could see that they had been of the usual blue; but nothing was left of the roof save its charred ribs.
Behind a wooden shed untouched by the fire lay two graves without crosses but decked with juniper; and a tall, very old woman, naked to the waist, with Magyar features, her grey hair wild and filthy, glided round and round the two hummocks talking confidentially to an invisible something. As we came nearer she drew herself up and made a forbidding gesture with her hand as if to warn us from the place. Then she suddenly turned away and wrung her hands towards the east with a piercing wail.
Show all 149 1 /149In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Final moments: The Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo minutes before his shooting
AP
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Arresting Princip’s fellow conspirator Nedeljko Cabrinovic after a failed attempt to kill the Archduke on the same day
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in central London cheer Britain’s declaration of war on Germany
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The innocents: New recruits, with bicycles, training with the British Army in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 1914: A lone soldier with a bicycle stands amid the remains of a German motor convoy which lines a country lane after an attack by French field guns in the battle of the Aisne in France
Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Troubled waters: The Cambridge eight included John Andrew Ritson (fourth from cox)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War John Andrew Ritson (left)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dennis Ivor Day
Musuem of London; Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantry advance through Belgium in August 1914
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Civilians near the Austrian lines in Serbia are strung up – probably as a reprisal for guerrilla resistance to the invaders
Miroslav Honzík/Hana Honzíková
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captured soldiers of the Russian 2nd Army after their defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wounded and exhausted British and Belgian soldiers retreating after the Battle of Mons
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds gather outside a recruitment office
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French General Joseph Joffre (second right), Commander- in-Chief of the French Armies, and General Michel Joseph Maunoury (right) on the front during the First Battle of the Marne. Six hundred scarlet taxis were requisitioned, at a cost of Fr70,102, to ferry reservist troops to the Battle of the Marne in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French firing squad escorts a deserter to his execution in November 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the trenches from which deserters tried to escape
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German soldiers in Wirballen, a border town between the German Reich and Russia
Mary Evans Picture Library
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carl Hans Lody, who spied in Britain
Popperfoto/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Up to 12 million letters a week were sent to the front line via the wooden sorting office hastily set up in Regent’s Park in 1914
Royal Mail
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors from SMS ‘Gneisenau’ in the sea off the Falkland Islands, with HMS ‘Inflexible’ in the background, 8 December 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The ruins of the cloth hall and cathedral in Ypres during WWI
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Margot Asquith, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and the wife of Britain’s wartime leader
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A wounded American in a London hospital reads a magazine with a red cross nurse by his bedside.
A. R. Coster/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A mass execution by firing squad following the unsuccessful Singapore mutiny of 1915
rebelsindia.com
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Indian soldiers serving in France were known for their fighting spirit
Underwood Archives/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Russian artillery positions outside Przemysl, during the six-month siege of the heavily fortified Austro-Hungarian city, part of present-day Poland
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Residents assess the damage after Suffolk was rocked by bomb attacks mounted by German Zeppelin
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantrymen attack through a cloud of poison gas. By the end of the war, both sides had employed various kinds of gas
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Children of Armenian refugees in a camp
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Armenian civilians being led away by Ottoman soldiers
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A public hanging in Istanbul
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A pile of skulls from the Armenian village of Sheyxalan
AFP/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops at Anzac Cove (Gaba Tepe) during the Gallipoli campaign
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops unloading heavy guns in the Dardanelles
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Volunteer nurse Florence Farmborough was part of the Russian retreat from Gorlice
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Cunard liner RMS Lusitania, after secret Whitehall misgivings about the official account of one of the most controversial and tragic episodes of the First World War were revealed in newly-released government documents. Almost 70 years after the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland, some officials expressed concern that the truth was still being covered up
PA Wire
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The RMS Lusitania sailed from New York on 1 May 1915 on her last voyage; the liner was sunk off southern Ireland on 7 May
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Welsh Liberal politician and future Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863 - 1945) enjoys a quiet read of a newspaper in his garden with his faithful dog for company
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French troops line up for inspection on a trench on the Western Front
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German military prisoners, at Southend-on-Sea, on their way to Knockaloe
Print Collector/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The railway line running the length of the access road into Knockaloe, the biggest camp in the British Isles
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors of the sinking in Cobh, Co Cork
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Robert Graves (1895-1985), who served on the Western Front from 1915 to 1917
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 2nd Lieutenant John Kipling is thought to have been killed in The Chalk Pit, in Loos, France, on 27 September 1915
Wikimedia Creative Commons
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Laid to rest: Edith Cavell circa 1905
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Her funeral cortege in London in May 1919
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War George Samson is celebrated on a cigarette card of the time
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Flora Sandes, who rose from private to sergeant-major in the Serbian army, playing chess with her Serbian comrades. After the war ended, she was promoted to lieutenant
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Italian light infantry of the 1st Alpini Regiment on Monte Nero, during the Isonzo campaigns
Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War As Italian as mozzarella cheese: Giuseppe Ungaretti
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French troops under shellfire during the Battle of Verdun
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French soldier is shot during a counter attack
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Devastation near Fort Souville, Verdun
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscripts, among the first men ever to be compelled to join the British Army, undergo a medical
Central Press/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Chandeliers and bed rest
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Pavilion was meant as a seaside home for the Prince Regent
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Fun and games were vital
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Patients get some sea air
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The medical staff
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Britain saw the Easter Rising as a stab in the back and the rebels, pictured here being led to captivity, as traitors. Subsequent executions made them into national heroes
Rex
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A steamer hit by a torpedo during the First World War
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Ottoman army besieged the British forces for 147 days until they surrendered on 29 April 1916
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War General Sir Charles Townshend
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The tear-stained letter
Imperial War Museum
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon as a second lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His bravery won him the Military Cross in July 1916, but he later turned against the war
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The sinking of the ‘Queen Mary’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German destroyers off the English coast
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sharif Hussain, religious leader of Mecca
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sir Henry McMahon, British minister in Cairo
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Emilio Lussu, who fought in the battle with the Italian Army, on the side of the allies, against the Austrians, who sided with Germany
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, whose face appeared on the recruitment poster ‘Your Country Needs You’
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscientious objectors at a protest on Dartmoor in 1917
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Objectors were forced to cultivate the soil although many were said to have spent much of their time "strolling on the moors, reading, smoking and talking"
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British conscientious objectors leaving Dartmoor Prison under a gateway inscribed with the words "Parcere subjectis" ("Spare the conquered")
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Going over the top during the Battle of the Somme in 1916
PA
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The British Machine Gun Corps during the battle
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Canadian troops prepare for the charge
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of the German airship shot down over Cuffley
Popperfoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captain William Leefe Robinson received the VC for his courage
Hulton/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British Mark 1 tank on the Western Front
Topical Press/Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British soldier covers a dead German on the firestep of a trench near the Somme
Hulton/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carnage on the road to Romania’s Turnu Rosu Pass. A German NCO stands beside an Italian-made cannon and the body of what may have been a gun crew member
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward Thomas, a Second-Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, at home on leave in early 1917
Edward Thomas Fellowship
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward’s wife Helen with two of their three children, Merfyn and Bronwen
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War May Bradford writing a letter for an injured soldier in a French hospital
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Composer and poet Ivor Gurney (left) and the artist Paul Nash
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Filling shells at the Vickers munitions factory, Barrow-in-Furness. Strikers’ grievances included the use of female labour
BAE Systems Submarines
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The moment that ushered in the American century: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to ratify a declaration of war against Imperial Germany
AP
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporters greet Lenin on his arrival at Finland Station, Petrograd, on 16 April 1917, after a week-long journey by sealed train from Switzerland
Everett Collection/Rex Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War War effort: Women war workers at Cross Farm, Shackleton, Surrey, in 1917
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French ‘poilus’ at Chemin des Dames, where the bloody Nivelle Offensive of 1917 pushed many into mutiny
Rex
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War An early colour photograph of the crater left by the biggest of the blasts beneath German positions near Messines on 14 June 1917
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British sappers laying the mines
Heritage Images/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The remains of a German trench
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Ernst Jünger’s German platoon overcame the enemy forces with his ‘mastery of the situation and iron command’
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart Hospital to be treated for ‘shell shock’ following his protest
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), whose 1929 novel, ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’, was based on his wartime experiences. Here he is seen with Carl Laemmle of Universal Pictures (left)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The conscription of reserve soldiers in Greece to fight on the Salonika front in 1916. The Greek city was ravaged by a fire the following year, which devastated the area and left thousands homeless
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops marching down the Boulevard de la Victoire in Salonika in 1916, the year before the great fire which devastated the Greek city
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Women leaving a munitions factory on Eiswerder Island in Spandau, near Berlin, at the end of their shift, in around 1917. They are crossing the bridge over the river Havel
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Female workers of the Spandau factory getting their dinner during the midday break
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wet weather plagued the Third Battle of Ypres, which included the battles of Langemarck and Passchendaele. Perhaps 70,000 Allied soldiers died between 31 July and 10 November
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British stretcher party
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German prisoners on a duckboard track at Yser Canal, Belgium, on the opening day of the battle
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 3rd September 1917: Veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War US Ambassador Page greeting veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 22nd December 1917: Christmas preparations at the Eagle Hut
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Albin Köbis, who was shot as one of the ringleaders of the German naval mutiny in 1917
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Stokers of the SMS Prinzregent Luitpold in 1913
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops in what is now Zambia, in vain pursuit of the forces of the elusive German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Genius in the art of bush warfare: German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German women and children queue for food rations
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds at Petrograd’s Winter Palace during the October Revolution. (Russia still used the Julian calendar, in which the West’s 7 November equated to 25 October)
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Mayor of Jerusalem (with walking-stick) had tried to surrender the city to them
Imperial War Museum
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allenby walks into Jerusalem: Sergeants James Sedgwick and Frederick Hurcomb of 2/19th Battalion, London Regiment, outside the city two days earlier
AP
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Artist John Nash not only painted the ordeals of Britain’s front line troops: he experienced them first-hand
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British housewife with her grocery items after the introduction of rationing. The government feared hunger might lead to revolution
Rex
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edmund Morel as an MP after his release
Topham Picturepoint
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A suffragist rally in Hyde Park
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A newly enfranchised woman votes for the first time in 1918
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Masked doctors and nurses treat flu patients lying on cots and in outdoor tents at a hospital camp during the influenza epidemic of 1918
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense long-range naval gun which was used to bombard Paris from behind the German lines in Picardy
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense naval gun was manned by 80 German sailors. It launched its shells from behind the German lines
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Walter Tull, left, Britain’s first black Army officer, in a photograph handed down to his great-nephew Edward Finlayson
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tull was singled out for his "gallantry and coolness" following a daring raid across the frozen river Piave in January 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The German air ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Baron Manfred von Richthofen's 'flying circus'
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dogs at the British War Dog School in Essex
Mary Evans Picture Library
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tweed, far left, with his handler Private Reid
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A dog courier runs through barbed wire and mines to deliver a message
Corbis
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Piete Kuhr, pictured in 1915
Memoria Hürth
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Vera Brittain became a nurse during the war
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The aftermath of the explosion at the munitions plant in Chilwell
Nottingham City Council
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of a soldier on the Western Front, where millions were killed or wounded, or went missing
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War From left, Marshal Joffre, President Henri Poincaré, King George V, General Foch, and Field-Marshal Haig
Time life pictures/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captured German officers receiving orders from a French officer
Universal Images Group/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American troops advance on a German position on the Saint Mihiel salient, north-eastern France, in 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American soldiers of the 18th Infantry Machine Gun Battalion advance through the ruins of St Baussant on their way to the St. Mihiel Front
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A group of captured Germans being marched through St Mihiel Salient
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wilfred Owen in uniform as a 2nd Lieutenant. The poet was teaching in France when the war began
Fotosearch/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, circa 1920. The poet describes to his wife the rising tide of popular unrest in Munich
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The interior of the railway carriage in which the Armistice ending the First World War was signed
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Allied delegation was led by France’s Marshal Ferdinand Foch (front row, second right)
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Royal Family appear on the balcony
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War People celebrate in the streets in 1918
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities on 11 November 1918
Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities in 1918
Getty
Trusting to his smattering of Hungarian, Lieutenant F tried to speak to her, but she bent down, gathered a handful of earth from the nearest grave and flung it at him, more as an exorcism and a warning than as a hostile act. Half in vexation, half in horror, Lieutenant F started back and returned to the column. None of the other officers or men halted. They did, indeed, wonder aloud what could have happened to the old woman; but most of them felt that here a tragedy had taken place which no facile sympathy could alleviate, and went on marching silently into the mists which soon blotted out the terrible grandeur of the scene.
The mountain we climbed was a mountain of blindness and death. From the eastern slope, where the battle was not yet decided, wild cries rang through the rattle of the musketry; and up here, in the position we had captured, the enemy were wreaking their vengeance on the conquerors. Like a swarm of hornets the shells dashed against the rocks, tearing the flesh from the limbs of the living and the dead. Sometimes German wounded called to us, sometimes Romanian, who were now being mutilated for a second time by the fire of their comrades.
Some of them suffered in silence; others twisted like wounded snakes. Through the zone of death we saw Germans lightly wounded descending the mountain, a few white and shaken, but others walking jauntily, dressed up as if for a fancy-dress ball in the gay-coloured belts, jackets and military decorations of their dead enemies.
One had brought back a gramophone with him from the Romanian lines; now an idea suddenly struck him, he placed it on a stone and set it going, the page in “Figaro” began to sing, and like the voice of a mad soul, Mozart’s music rose in a world of ruin. The despatch orderly, Glavina, was leaning against a granite block near the commander’s dug-out; he was still breathing, but on his face was already the prescient look of the dead. We could see no trace of blood. Fighting down our sorrow and apprehension, we searched for the wound and found at last a tiny splinter driven into the nape of the neck. Soon his breathing ceased. A few closely written sheets of paper, which must have fallen out of his pocket, I took with me to hand over to the adjutant; but I noticed on the way back that they did not contain anything official, so I kept them beside me for the time being. We told the major that the Bosnian stretcher-bearers who had been arranged for had not yet come; he promised to communicate with the division and sent us back to Hallesul.
Meanwhile, the sky had darkened; snow began to fall. A flowing, white veil shut off the guns from the targets they were firing at; one after another they fell silent, and we descended almost in safety. A Romanian stretched between two birch trunks lay across my path; I thought he was dead and was stepping over him, when I heard a groan and felt a feeble ... tug at my cloak.
Turning round, I looked down on the dying face of a man of about 30; his eyes were closed, his mouth terribly twisted with pain. His fingers still clutched fast the hem of my cloak. Through a grey cape which covered his breast a slight vapour was rising. R threw it back; under his torn ribs, his lungs and heart lay exposed, the heart beating sluggishly. A number of silver and copper medals of saints, which he had been wearing on a black ribbon round his neck, were driven deep into his flesh, some of them much bent. We covered him up again. The man half-opened his eyes, his lips moved. Simply for the sake of doing something I filled my morphia syringe, and then I saw that this was what he seemed to want: he pushed the cloak aside and tried to stretch out his arm to me in readiness – behaviour hard to account for in a man already almost dead! But perhaps there is an infinitely poignant anguish which a man conscious of approaching death desires to be rid of at any price, because it holds him fast to life in burning pain and hinders a free and clean parting: who knows? After the injection he laid his head back against the birch almost in comfort and closed his eyes, in whose deep sockets large snowflakes were already beginning to fall.
At daybreak rifle-firing, which soon fell silent. After sunrise the overcast sky cleared; one could see behind a transparent veil of cloud the waning moon like an embryonic golden shape.
The stretcher-bearers have come, and in relays all the wounded are being carried away. Pirkl must remain here; his pulse is almost imperceptible and he would most probably reach Oitoz as a corpse. His brother had obtained an hour’s leave to visit him.
As Pirkl cannot speak any longer his brother is employing his time in digging a grave for the still living man, and carving a cross, on which he is very carefully printing in blue pencil the name of the fallen ….
Originally published in “A Romanian Diary”, by Hans Carossa (Martin Secker, 1929). © Eva Kampmann-Carossa
Tomorrow: The last night of leave.
The '100 Moments' already published can be seen at: independent.co.uk/greatwar
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